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Texas Supreme Court
Parents and TEA Get What They Wanted
In Dismissal of 2016 STAAR Suit as “Moot”
Ruling: A request by parents to have their lawsuit over the TEA’s implementation of 2015 STAAR legislation dismissed as “moot” is granted. [Education Commissioner] Mike Morath and Texas Education Agency v. Virginia Diane Lewis, et al., No. 18-0555. Issued April 17.
The parents claimed in their lawsuit they filed against the TEA in 2016 that their elementary and junior high students were harmed in various ways because the Spring 2016 STAAR tests their children took did not comply with then-recent legislation that required the tests to be designed so that a majority of students could be expected to complete the assessments within time limits set in the bill.
The case wound up before the Texas Supreme Court (TSC) after the TEA appealed the rejection by an Austin appeals court of the agency’s pre-trial motion to dismiss the suit.
Right after the TEA filed a brief with the TSC outlining its case, the attorneys for the parents asked that the suit be dismissed as “moot” because the parents no longer wanted to pursue their claims.
The TSC granted the parent’s request to dismiss the suit as moot. The justices also granted a request by the TEA to void the decision by the Austin appeals court that concluded that the parents had a right to pursue their STAAR-related claims against the TEA.
By voiding the appeals court ruling, the ruling can’t be cited in future lawsuits against the TEA that raise similar STAAR-related claims, the justices noted.